[0:05] good evening I'm 29th Amery City Council meeting to order the rolls between

[0:23] floors yes yes Tim is rushing back in Wisconsin Dells so he will appear

[0:33] shortly and I'm assuming right to Chris Vickers is for all thank you Chris first

[0:59] item is the public hearing portion of the 2018 budget so I'm going to speak to

[1:08] that notice stated that there are copyist budgets available at City Hall

[1:35] of speakers like to

[1:50] so ladies and gentlemen members of the public after a lot of hard work by city

[1:55] staff department heads and City Council members we have a proposed 2018 city

[2:01] budget for your consideration tonight [Music]

[2:06] the way the numbers have worked out I think the community will be appreciative

[2:14] of our 2018 proposed tax levy is decreased from last year the dollar

[2:22] amount we're looking at is one million eight hundred and twenty nine thousand

[2:28] and four hundred and eighty seven dollars like I stated that is a decrease

[2:33] from 2017 of 0.14 percent however the city's assessed value did drop last year

[2:42] by five hundred and thirty six thousand four hundred dollars so the mill rate

[2:48] will increase the city's portion of the mill rate and of course just as a

[2:53] disclaimer all the numbers and everything I'm talking about are only

[2:57] the city only the city portion city's specific I'm not commenting on any of

[3:02] the other taxing entities so but because of the drop in the value last year which

[3:09] was in the manufacturing category of our assessed property and this was due to

[3:15] the Cardinal glass appeal of their manufacturing assessment because of that

[3:19] decrease even though we have dropped our levy our mill rate will be slightly up

[3:24] by 0.14 percent what this would translate is about a dollar on your tax

[3:31] bill if your home is valued at $100,000 this would be about a dollar in

[3:36] additional taxes what our projection is also something to mention is that

[3:42] everything I'm talking about is before the tax incremental levy is

[3:48] Dinn we don't know what that levy is and we don't know what those numbers are

[3:52] until the Department of Revenue tells us what they are I'll be filing online all

[3:59] of the levy information from the various taxing entities and they will tell me

[4:03] what we actually collect after the tip tax increment is calculated so there's a

[4:10] few changes to the budget document this year one of those changes is that the

[4:18] way we allocate employee benefits and wages to fund some labour accounts we've

[4:26] changed a little bit the way employees are accounting for their time and their

[4:31] time cards that gives us some more authentic view of where their time is

[4:35] actually spent it's more accurate rather than estimating we have real numbers to

[4:40] work with so that will change the look of that a little bit last year's budget

[4:47] document had the community investment plan or that capital improvement plan

[4:52] it's part of the budget document we didn't do that this year because it is

[4:56] time for us to review that and update it that's a living document that is

[5:03] periodically needs council review so with that you can also see off from what

[5:10] we had in the paper we have a balanced budget our expenditures are down 0.8 to

[5:17] 6% our revenues are down 0.8 to 6% giving us a balanced budget as I

[5:24] mentioned our tax levy is down 1.3 7 % with that if anybody has any questions

[5:31] that they want to ask me the City Council was very active in attending the

[5:37] various committee meetings where we're working on the budget so they have a

[5:42] very good idea and overview of how the budget projects work this year and what

[5:48] projects the city will be doing and looking at and how the money is being

[5:52] spent and we're very active in that

[5:57] do you have any questions for friend nope okay if there aren't any questions

[6:06] then I will take a seat thank you oh of course

[6:16] oh okay certainly yes and we are maybe perhaps slightly less organized due to

[6:24] some time constraints and staffing constraints we've struggled with this

[6:27] files but yep certainly will have a copy that you can have you happy to do it and

[6:32] then after the budgets adopted then it'll get out online us yeah okay no

[6:45] worries whatever alright moving on from the public hearing about resolution 0-5

[6:55] - 2 1 - 0 1 7 2 adopt the budget there any other questions or comments

[7:08] I move to adopt the budget as to minute now second motion made and seconded to

[7:16] adopt the 2018 budget the other discussion all in favor all right

[7:26] we need a roll call your friend okay yes Vickers yes Paulson yes in remaining yes

[7:35] thank you okay item five another public hearing on the matter of state and

[7:45] federal aid and preliminary environmental assessment for the

[7:49] improvements at the Emory Municipal Airport this agenda item is to follow up

[7:59] with J Craig's appearance at our November first meeting where J went in

[8:04] depth and gave us a detailed analysis of the items that are in the airport

[8:09] petition and project plan and then as part of being able to qualify for the

[8:14] federal funding for the airport we need to formally hold a public hearing and we

[8:21] need to formally adopt the resolution to petition for those okay and J apologizes

[8:29] he can't be here tonight because having a name replaced okay oh you've got two

[8:33] people from the Airport Commission either one of you guys want to say

[8:36] anything about this okay all right then I will entertain a motion for resolution

[8:48] 0 6 - 2 1 2 0 1 7 petitioning for the Secretary of Transportation for the

[8:54] airport improvement aid so move a second motion made in a second do we need a

[9:02] roll call on this one friend okay motion made and seconded to approve the

[9:08] transportation aid all in favor aye opposed carried appointment of the poll

[9:17] workers for 2018 2019

[9:22] under state statutes we are required every two years to point poll workers

[9:27] for term of service we are looking at having a pretty vague election year in

[9:34] 2018 will be having a minimum of five elections and potentially seven

[9:38] elections we have a primary coming up in December of this year because that's

[9:45] with in 2017 those poll workers appointments still stand but we do need

[9:50] to reappoint our poll workers going into for the 18 2018-19

[9:55] term so anytime I get a chance to give a shout out to the poll workers electric

[10:02] workers here in the city of Emery I want to do that they do a great job we're

[10:06] happy to have them they're very conscientious and civic and community

[10:10] minded so I just want to throw that out there as well as you can see they are

[10:16] people who have served as pull workers in the past and then we make sure also

[10:20] that they're adequately trained according to statute as well so okay so

[10:27] there's no action we need to take just to approve that the list as it was

[10:33] submitted what is the list should be in your draft okay I can read the names if

[10:45] you would like if you're having trouble announcing that

[10:51] I just got into some yes okay it is Wendy Bachmann Jerry Banias Mary

[10:58] bolter Karen Kristofferson Cathy Hagen Louis Kressel Diane Lucas Kathy Maxim

[11:07] dick pelt Julie Raymond Schneider Dolores Schultz dick Schultz and Cathy

[11:14] cereal

[11:17] make a motion to prove the list of you as presented here in our packet and just

[11:22] write out the second okay Martin maiden same to approve the poll workers in you

[11:30] more discussion on favor by post carried operator's license yes we had one

[11:40] applicant for an operator's license for MS Walter who's working at Countryside

[11:46] that chief replaced did the background check that she passed and she's met the

[11:52] educational requirements so I would recommend that I'll make that motion to

[12:01] approve the operator license for Stephanie Walter how'd you say circular

[12:07] motion maiden state to approve the operator's license Paul in favor

[12:11] hi hi opposed carried okay questions from the public regarding me any a ton

[12:20] two items so far okay Kim and I decided that we probably don't need to go into

[12:30] closed session so we are going to okay all right so we're going to go on with

[12:39] the let's see 2018 employee benefits in retirement

[12:45] what was that

[12:49] the pikia good evening mayor and members of the council members of the audience

[12:57] when I first started we talked about the possibility of doing pto which is pay

[13:03] time off and basically for the information of the audience and people

[13:08] watching tonight's council meeting pay time off is really a combination of

[13:14] leave benefits and those leave benefits would be sick and vacation often times

[13:20] people use their vacation and the sick time stacks up because it's

[13:25] traditionally just been cold when you're sick and so they have many more hours in

[13:31] their sick bank than they did vacation bank and though several years ago about

[13:36] ten years ago there was a movement to combine those into a PTO or paid time

[13:40] off and it still is something that's occurring in most municipalities and

[13:46] county governments and perhaps the state I'm not sure but a lot of cities are

[13:50] still working towards developing a PTO so that's the combination of paid and

[13:54] vacations so that people the the theory behind it is that people who are working

[14:01] in governor in at a job are usually adults and can manage their own leave

[14:07] benefits and so a lot of times people will say they have if they need a sick

[14:13] day they're not feeling well but if they really need extra time off for vacation

[14:16] or something come up and they need at the time so this is a way for employees

[14:22] to manage their own Linc benefits and once they've exhausted all their leave

[14:26] benefits that they've accrued during a year there is no more allocation of any

[14:31] kind of pay time off once they've hit the max and they've

[14:34] used all that they have they have to wait until they start accruing them

[14:38] again and so there's a way that that accrual

[14:42] is taken care of and I contacted the cities of Baldwin River Falls and the

[14:48] city I worked at previously when I first started working with PTO in Minnesota

[14:53] and all three do heavily PTO leave benefits programs and the one that I

[14:59] worked with in the village of st. Anthony

[15:03] still using their PTO and I think I did it about 15 years ago so and the staff

[15:09] still apparently appreciates the fact that they get to manage their own time

[15:13] so that being said and I think the city of Baldwin in addition to using vacation

[15:23] and sick time as PTO they also roll in there floating holidays and any holiday

[15:30] time into the PTO I didn't do that I have never heard of that before we can

[15:36] certainly do that if the council is willing but I just I feel that PTO is a

[15:41] leave benefit that's earned and vacation and floating vacations aren't

[15:45] necessarily time earned it's time granted to be with your family and

[15:50] strictly to be used during the holidays that they were established for but again

[15:55] that's something that the council could consider doing as well so I believe we

[16:02] put a lot of this information in the drop box for the council so that is

[16:06] there to look at and last week I met with staff and we went over some of we

[16:13] went over the the proposed draft PTO and and talked about some of the issues in a

[16:19] staff meeting and this was a PowerPoint presentation that David and I worked on

[16:27] together to put this together for the the staff and basically the last page

[16:32] before the question section shows how PTO will be accumulated or accrued by

[16:38] staff and so there is a little bit of a formula and so for the first for the

[16:47] first year after accruing you get 19 days of crude and that's vacation and

[16:51] sick time combined and so you would so what I did is I multiplied 19 days by 8

[16:57] hours and got 152 hours of their leave time that's when it translates to and

[17:04] hours and and then at that point I divided it by 250 point five days which

[17:12] is 300 50 days in a year - weekends and -

[17:16] holidays and so that's that was / and those 152 hours of which it equals 19

[17:25] days was divided by the two hundred and fifty to fifty point five and then give

[17:30] me a point six zero six seven and then you multiply that by ten days in a pay

[17:36] period ten working days in a pay period and so you get six point zero six seven

[17:42] hours accrued each pay period for this leave time and then as the SI years as a

[17:51] person's years of service increases so do those hours and so obviously we'll

[17:56] the accrued pay time and so we also discussed it a a work session to limit

[18:03] those hours because after twenty-one years an employee could earn one

[18:10] thousand two hundred and forty hours of leave time and so we talked about

[18:18] limiting it to 720 hours that can be carried over to the next year and that's

[18:24] essentially 90 days and there was some discussion that the 90 days would be a

[18:30] nice safety net it's a short-term disability if you will so if somebody is

[18:34] is hurt that 720 days would go towards their recuperation and kind of a

[18:42] short-term disability provided in hours for employees and so another part of the

[18:52] discussion needs to be is if when we transition to PTO we have staff that

[18:59] have many more hours than one thousand two hundred and forty hours and so what

[19:05] do we do with that and it's a huge financial liability to any government

[19:10] entity and so there are a number of things you can do you can pay them

[19:16] outright and give them a time a year or a specific time to use as much as as

[19:22] possible or if and then whatever's left over that

[19:25] can be forfeited or you can agree to pay out at a retirement if there's some

[19:33] employee willing to retire then that could be paid out before the end of the

[19:37] year under retirement I mean there's any way you can structure that so we can get

[19:45] this everybody on the same page with the paid time off program any questions and

[19:52] you say you've met with all the employees this and and explained this

[19:57] whole program to them so they're very well aware of it how do they feel about

[20:02] it are they I think for the most part they

[20:07] were favorable towards it there's a lot of concern of course for the hours

[20:12] they've already earned and what's going to happen to those hours I'm sorry

[20:17] no go ahead there one of the concerns that I had heard throughout our

[20:21] organization and throughout some of the other city employees is there that this

[20:25] benefit first segment have been developed years ago there and it was

[20:30] supposed to be a benefit for the employees and and for the city to retain

[20:35] the employees or things like that there and I think that we all understand the

[20:39] liability of that and to put an end to that you know I think I understand that

[20:45] but the concern is about the accumulated six hours there that have been accrued

[20:54] over the years and stuff like that I think in my police department alone

[20:59] there's almost forty six hundred hours of sick time that's on the books right

[21:03] now and some staff you know can there were how we did it in st. Anthony to is

[21:12] either they took retirement there was an end date a year from when it was

[21:15] implemented and you would take and use all of the old sick and vacation hours

[21:21] prior to starting to use your newly accrued PTO hours

[21:28] some folks took retirement if they decided that that wasn't good enough

[21:33] there's any way that you know there are a number of ways that it can be

[21:37] organized so there needs to be a little bit more work done on this yeah yeah and

[21:45] that's the only piece that I need you know some feedback on and other cities

[21:51] have just this is it you're done other cities have paid it out right this is it

[21:57] you're done maybe a combination of both maybe during you get a year's grace to

[22:04] use up all of the accrued sick and vacation time you can roll it into PTO

[22:10] again there are some limits that you know I can understand with you know like

[22:17] France position before and the police department when they're when she

[22:21] couldn't take time off in the transition in there's times at the police

[22:26] department minimum you know have to have staff in they can't so I think there's

[22:29] somewhere we need to work out with something that's earned a benefit to be

[22:33] fair if we move forward we are you something with that because there's some

[22:36] times that again manpower the vacation could be denied and it wouldn't be right

[22:42] if they can't take it to lose something right there should put that into a

[23:02] special account there it didn't increase at any point or whatever like I so what

[23:07] you had in that account state of that account there yeah analysts anticipate

[23:11] out similar to what the city of Avery has on the books here right now and then

[23:16] any other sick time was any PTO that you would accumulate they're they're similar

[23:22] to what Kim had come up with there but to pay on that is significantly less II

[23:27] if you separate stuff like that and I think that it met with some

[23:33] resistance there but I think even the union's eventually bought out of that

[23:39] and certainly that's a consideration as well there because that'll be something

[23:42] that'll have to be negotiated with her okay it's not subject to negotiation

[23:48] right now unions can only fire his wages they can't bargain paid time off for

[23:55] vacation or ensure health insurance or any of those things anymore aft can

[23:59] remove that they can just bargain their wage so I'm sure though that they would

[24:05] appreciate any consideration exactly I'm sure that they would preeminent you know

[24:12] maybe I don't know if they Kim for people that have the time that aren't

[24:16] even ready to retire is there anything that maybe can be worked out for like

[24:20] our health savings accounts or something like that that and that was a call that

[24:25] I was going to make to Mike I know there's a limit but maybe if you know

[24:29] rather than they have to pay their portion possibly that'd be in lieu and

[24:33] that go towards whatever you know I know there's limits on it but I'm just saying

[24:41] I know there's a portion of wheat city pays and that the employee has to but

[24:44] maybe that would be you know they could whatever or maybe even flex time if

[24:53] somebody has a surgery of one sort or another that they've been considering

[24:57] it's kind of elective and and they could use that money towards doing that as

[25:01] well the issue is as much as any as that a you mentioned 4600 hours of sick time

[25:09] accrued in your department obviously you don't need that much sick time if you

[25:14] can with five employees or six employees that cue a crew almost 5000 hours of

[25:21] sick time besides the liability issue then we need

[25:26] to do something and I think the PTO will do that in an allows employees to take

[25:32] time off without a reason you don't have to I mean if you want a day off you call

[25:38] the boss up and say hey I need tomorrow off why I want to sleep in doesn't

[25:44] yeah Alan you know - I mean we do still have in her personnel manual that the

[25:49] thymeoff still has to be approved by their capture they start to put in for I

[25:53] didn't give notice so but that that that in in reality is very rarely ever and I

[26:02] denied I mean and if somebody needs a day off they need the day off it's not

[26:07] right and the major problem with the traditional accrual of earn time is the

[26:13] sick time that you couldn't take it for any reason but way back and you know

[26:18] you'll be able to yeah if you need a mental health day you can take it okay

[26:23] the other thing that was brought up to is it if you can accrue 90 days which is

[26:30] 720 hours basically that for any illness or any reason that the city's long term

[26:40] disability kicks in I mean we also provide that long-term disability so

[26:45] there is no gap coverage like you Medicare or something like that you're

[26:50] you're pretty much protected for a long time and so on sole but it is nice to

[26:56] have that for the show absolutely if you do break a leg or you're seriously

[27:01] injured yep okay so this is an ongoing discussion and project brand goof well I

[27:13] guess it was my understanding was the council's intention before and they had

[27:17] this has been talked about it committee meetings and then the council I believe

[27:21] last month wanted to implement this by the first of Inger if these things

[27:26] aren't resolved obviously we're not going to be able to do that so just so

[27:30] there's a plan B in place of depending upon how you want to implement it but

[27:36] you know I bring you that up because the staff kind of you know our our payroll

[27:42] HR department we kind of needs to know where they're at and I'm not rushing

[27:46] anything because anything that is done can be made retroactive certainly a

[27:49] addressed at that time so the main issue is figuring what to do

[27:56] with people that are over the time that's to me that I've talked to do

[28:03] amongst the staff that appears to be the main concern is what's going to happen

[28:08] to the time that I have on the books and if I have more than 720 hours on the

[28:13] books right now what happens to that time and how many employees are we

[28:18] talking about with more than 720 hours I believe three or four yeah so maybe six

[28:32] yeah over 20 years but not they don't have 700 over $700 a sick time yeah

[28:38] there's three of them that tree of them and we don't want learn to since we're

[28:43] not in closed session we probably don't want to talk about individual right no I

[28:49] for sure but otherwise or less about a session on the agenda and those white

[28:54] would be suitable if you did want to talk about it in closed session because

[28:58] it's a subject that yeah very closely intertwined with individual people but

[29:04] otherwise for the most part other than the idea of PTO seemed to be from

[29:09] everybody like that gonna get user time all you want basically just I wanna know

[29:14] they're gonna structure that's the old time accrual that's January meeting day

[29:27] we should be able to handle it by then I would think okay thanks basic yeah cuz a

[29:32] basic the meeting if we know we like the structure that is just what options that

[29:37] employees gonna have some options someone wants to retire the retire

[29:41] somebody wants that doesn't you know if they can use for health reviews for

[29:44] something else it's this structure something that an option of what yeah

[29:49] and and I will look at all all of them that you know keep them as whole as

[29:54] possible I have never liked the idea once somebody's earned something taking

[29:58] it away right yeah so do we do we need to vote on the item

[30:06] twelve conversion to pay time off in general and then you work off the

[30:11] details are you asking for council approval on that item well it sounds

[30:18] like you're not ready to have done it yet so it's on the agenda to act on if

[30:23] you wish to act on it you don't have to act on it or you can you know act on it

[30:30] that you know the intent is to implement it as the first of the year once some

[30:35] things are finalized that's totally up to you you can table it and tell January

[30:41] if you want to when it's ready to be finalized that's up to you

[30:47] that sounds like a lot of the details you're between Kim and you or have to

[30:52] work out with the employees so I so I couldn't we adopt it contingent upon

[30:56] those items being a comfort resolution if you will yeah something like that

[31:03] yeah we are going we like the idea so I think it's basically that yes this is

[31:12] the plan moving forward the only thing in the detail is with the options for

[31:17] the employees that at what time they've earned there's something that there

[31:21] there's a bucket or some way of some way to analyze that and this is that we

[31:26] don't really different options again look at the possibilities or whatever

[31:29] what they are for the employees that are affected and then you know but then the

[31:34] fact that PTL seems to be that seems good we just got to make sure that the

[31:37] people don't their main compensated for what they've

[31:40] earned in some fashion we just gotta figure what the options will be would be

[31:49] are you went in there if you make this evening to do that are you leaving

[31:56] that discretion on what ultimately to do to the city administrator or on the

[32:03] third is the council gonna let her read vote what might options I think we'll

[32:07] what will want to revote on the option right I I mean I don't I'm comfortable

[32:12] leaving it with the city administrator but she shouldn't have to take all the

[32:16] heat for doing this this is you know what I mean it's a council decision that

[32:22] was so is it is there that the availability do the motion and switching

[32:27] the PTO have meeting prior to then our third then while the options of a chance

[32:32] to take back to the employees then on that meeting will say now everybody

[32:35] who's over they have these options may be your department heads or whatever and

[32:40] then that will take care of the time there that are you thinking of all one

[32:45] thing on the third I'd like to don't we meet nervously

[32:49] personally all huh this is way too sweet we could end up having a having finance

[32:57] and having the whole council there upsets and I you know like the idea and

[33:05] I think you know that gives the the discussion has been really good and it

[33:09] gives the staff an impression that the council is agreeable we just need to

[33:14] finish that final pieces you know on how we're going to treat what they've

[33:19] already earned huh so that they there's they remain along so we can

[33:30] so what was your comfort Reservation mister banjo just to stay safe state

[33:36] that the so that the council is in favor of the proceeding with the PTO time as

[33:45] previously discussed with both Council and the employees and we will be

[33:52] available for a final decision on the 4th of January then then we get time to

[34:04] talk to the any folks that are involved and come up with the and I you know

[34:11] during that time - I can call another staff meeting or - whatever we need and

[34:15] and and talk with staff about how you know what they see as fair and most of

[34:22] them but it would be just the four or whatever employees are over the 720

[34:28] hours right and then maybe they can give some options and you can see if it's a

[34:31] feasible thing that we can write right the ones that have and then they can

[34:35] estimate say let's see you know some of them may say can they use more vacation

[34:39] or more time the rest of the year use it that way or whatever to get it rid of

[34:43] you know yeah because things are slow right now because of the holidays coming

[34:47] up so that might be a good idea as well yeah you know you don't leave the

[34:51] department stranded but we can certainly talk about that I can talk with the

[34:57] department heads and see what their thoughts are on that

[35:01] okay I'll second the motion that Rick me

[35:08] so basically we're really not voting on this until January 3rd or whatever

[35:14] ending our that's the support the plan forward and then so employees can feel

[35:21] some comfort to not wondering what we're doing until January 3rd you know that

[35:25] this is a plan and we're gonna work with trying to get something out of itself

[35:29] yeah right so they don't understand okay all of those in support of ERISA

[35:34] Comfort motion signify by saying aye opposed Carrie

[35:41] I think there is nothing else on the agenda we do not have a meeting in

[35:47] December so we will be meeting back here on January 3rd and I would like to

[35:54] publicly announce yes I am running for mayor thank you

[35:59] move to adjourn so move second all in favor aye

[36:04] we are adjourned thank you

Special Amery City Council Meeting November 29, 2017

Transcript